


died every day waiting for you

by violentdarlings



Category: Me Before You (2016), Me Before You - Jojo Moyes
Genre: Angst, Explicit Consent, F/F, F/M, He got it from Alicia, Kissing, Multi, OT3, So much angst, Threesome - F/F/M, Will Traynor still has a dirty mouth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-15
Updated: 2016-08-15
Packaged: 2018-08-08 23:05:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7777213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violentdarlings/pseuds/violentdarlings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“But I think in the last couple of months she had lost the power to wound him.” Me Before You, Jojo Moyes.</p><p>What if she hadn’t?</p>
            </blockquote>





	died every day waiting for you

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, the title is from *that* song - A Thousand Years by Christina Perri.
> 
> A little explanation of this fic is in the end author's note.
> 
> Me Before You belongs to Jojo Moyes, and I'm pretty sure she never ended anyone to do THIS with her characters. Sorry Jojo.

She’s just picked up a case of champagne for the wedding, when the call comes through to her mobile. Alicia looks down at the number, one she doesn’t recognise, and she almost doesn’t pick it up. Almost. So many almosts.

“Hello?” There’s silence, and a crackle.

“Don’t marry him,” says a voice, as familiar to her as her own, once as dear and as close as her own blood and bones. Of course she knows who it is. She hears his voice in her head nearly every damn day. “For the love of God, don’t.”

“I don’t understand,” she says, and she doesn’t, truly. “I got a call from your… from Miss Clark. She said you’d be coming to the wedding. It’s in four days. I can’t not marry him.”

There’s a heavy, shuddering breath down the line, as though it’s taking everything he’s got just to speak to her. “’Licia,” he says, and her heart jumps up into her throat. “God, baby. ‘Licia. I can’t –Please. Just don’t.”

Alicia closes her eyes. “You pushed me away,” she reminds him. “You didn’t want me. You –” Her voice catches, and she has to force herself to continue. “You told me to go and never come back. Fuck, Will, have you got any idea what that was like?”

There’s a pause.

“You’re right,” he says, and that dreadful resignation in it, she’d cut her heart out and give it to him if it meant she’d never have to hear that deadness in his voice. “I have no right to ask anything of you. I’m. I’m sorry.”

She clutches the phone to her ear long after he’s hung up. The champagne is still sitting in the backseat and she’s standing in the carpark of the winery like an absolute bloody idiot. Her heart is pounding.

And to think, she’d been stupid enough to think she was over Will Traynor.

 

Alicia gets in the car and drives. She has no idea where, but she goes and she goes until she’s been on the road for hours and she’s half an hour from Stortfold. Her hands clench spasmodically on the wheel, and she sets her jaw and drives, even as the darkness falls down outside and she’s driving through the night.

She parks her car, marches up towards the house. She raps sharply on the front door of the annexe, and when there’s no reply, pushes it open anyway. It’s not locked. It should be locked. Doesn’t that girl of his know what she’s about in the slightest?

She goes through the hall and stops in the entry way to the kitchen. Will’s in his chair, and his carer is feeding him dinner. He’s smiling, all the way through to his eyes, as blue as she’s remembered, back when she was his and he was hers, but warm, so warm. Because of this girl, this stranger who makes Will light up the way Alicia once did. She sees the exact moment he notices her, the way his face changes. It burns her all the way through with rage.

“Alicia!” he says in shock, and the girl’s head whips around, and Alicia can’t tell if she’s angry or upset anymore but fuck she could kill him, for everything, for this.

“You _arsehole_ ,” she says, and it comes out a sob. And yeah, maybe she’s crying, she can’t fucking help it, she hates him. “Fucking call like that out of the blue after two years, how dare you? You told me to go. You said no one would love a cripple, especially not a shallow daddy’s girl like me.”

“And I was right,” Will says immovably, as though the sight of her crying doesn’t affect him in the slightest and Alicia wants to hit him. “What do you want, Alicia? You’re interrupting dinner.”

“Fuck you, Will,” she says, and Jesus it feels good to say it, so she says it again. “Fuck you. Why fucking call me then, if you don’t give a damn about me?”

“A public service,” he sniffs. “No woman, even one like you, should be made to marry Rupert. I did think perhaps you deserved each other, but I had a moment of pity. Rest assured, it won’t happen again.”

“Bullshit,” Alicia flings at him. “You were nearly in fucking tears on the phone. I know what you sound like when you’re crying, Will, remember when your mum called to tell you Sadie had died? You cried on my shoulder for half an hour over that damn dog.”

“Don’t mention Sadie,” Will bites out. “Sadie is worth a thousand of you. At least she couldn’t help being a bitch.”

“Oh, you inconceivable bastard.”

“I think I’ll just leave you to it,” Louisa murmurs, making a good attempt to sidle away. Alicia whips her head around to glare at her. “Don’t you dare,” she snaps, and Will’s cheeks flush.

“Don’t speak to her that way!” he nearly shouts, and Alicia’s tears are well and truly gone now. So it’s like that, then.

“I see,” she snaps, the words clipped off at the ends. “It’s all right for you to call me every rude name under the sun, but God forbid anyone say a sharp word to her.”

“Yes, that’s exactly right,” Will says, flags of scarlet burning on his cheeks. “Returning to the subject of people better than you, you remember Louisa, I’m sure. Now if you’re quite done screaming obscenities at me, we were having dinner. Go back to your fiancée. I hope you’re both very happy together.” Will begins to wheel his chair away, and Alicia can’t bear it, she hates him more than life and she loves him almost as much and she refuses to let it end this way.

“I don’t want him!” she blurts, the words jagged with rage and hurt, and very slowly Will turns his chair around, his eyes as hard as granite. “I didn’t want Rupert. I wanted _you_ , I didn’t give a fuck about everything you said. I loved you, and you threw me away like I was nothing.” She can’t breathe, can’t think, and her arms and legs feel like lead. Maybe this is how Will feels, all of the time. “I didn’t care about the chair,” she whispers, and sits down on the sofa, puts her head in her hands to hide her face from his eyes. And Louisa Clark’s. And the world’s. “I just wanted to be yours.”

There’s nothing, and Alicia gathers her strength, prepares to leave with her head held high. But a shadow falls over her, and she looks up to see Will, curiously red around the eyes but impassive. “It’s too late for you to drive back to London,” he says, and Alicia’s head reels from the abrupt change of subject. “You can spend the night here, if you like. There’s a spare bedroom. Or there’s accommodation down in the village, if that’s more convenient.” There’s a challenge in his voice. He expects her to choose the easy option, to drive her little car down to the village, away from where she’d have to see him. Alicia nearly scoffs in front of him. Compared to Rupert’s mother, Will’s an amateur when it comes to passive aggressive power plays.

“Thank you for that, Will,” she says calmly, as if she just hadn’t been screaming her lungs out a few minutes prior. “If you wouldn’t mind letting me borrow your spare room for the night, I’d appreciate it greatly.” There’s a tiny flicker around the corner of his eyes. She’s surprised him.

“Of course,” he says, because he can’t very well go back on the offer now that he’s made it. Or he could, she supposes, now he doesn’t seem to be bound by the rules that had previously governed their lives together. “Down the hall.”

“Thank you,” she replies with some dignity, and goes into the bathroom to dry her eyes.

 

It must be all of three in the morning, when Alicia wakes up. She doesn’t know why, until she hears it. “Alicia. Alicia. Come here.”

“Fucking hell, Will,” she calls back at him. “It’s the middle of the night.”

“Don’t care. Come here.” Alicia rolls her eyes.

“Jesus.” But she slips out of bed. It’s cool in the hallway, and that’s when she realises she’s in her bra and knickers. Well, what else was she meant to sleep in? She stops just shy of the doorway to his room. “Will, I’m not decent.” There’s an exasperated huff from around the corner.

“Like I’ve never seen you naked. Or are you worried I’ll leap up and ravish you? Those days are sadly behind us.”

“Wanker,” she mutters. But she comes round the corner all the same. All she can see in the dark is the black shadow that is Will lying in the bed, and Alicia flicks the lamp on as she goes past. The soft light fills the room, and she’s acutely aware of her state of disarray, but Will’s only looking at her face.

“I shouldn’t have called you,” he says, and she winces. He’s not lost his tendency to get right into it. She stops by the bed, unsure of where is okay to sit, and settles on her knees on the floor by his bedside.

“No, you shouldn’t,” she agrees. “But, you know, it’s not like it bothered me. Since I’m an airhead who wouldn’t know how to change a lightbulb without a diagram and three men to do it for me.” He has the decency to wince.

“That was unkind,” he admits. “You do know how to change a lightbulb.” Alicia sniffs.

“I do. I can also change a tyre, fill up my own oil, and put flat pack furniture together.” So maybe she’d learned those skills to quiet his derisive voice in her head. He doesn’t need to know that.

“Very impressive,” Will says dryly, and she slaps him on the arm like she used to without even thinking about it. “You know, it’s not PC to beat up disabled people.”

“Funny, that’s not what I see when I look at you,” she retorts sharply. “I just see the arsehole who called me names, told me to leave, and always used to burn the toast.” She watches his face sober quickly.

“I was going to cook for you,” he says, his voice far away. “I was going to make you dinner and then take you to bed and do that thing you always liked.” Alicia feels a little colour come into her cheeks.

“I remember,” she says steadily. “I remember everything about that day. I remember getting the call to come to the hospital ASAP because they didn’t think you’d live. I remember three days later, when you woke up and the doctors told you that you might not walk again, and you said you wished you’d died on the road.” There’s a catch in her voice, but she’s not going to cry in front of him again. “And I remember wishing I’d let you take that stupid bike, so it wouldn’t have happened. I remember _everything_.”

Will’s silent, just watching her. “You shouldn’t marry Rupert,” he says finally. “He’s not good enough for you.” Alicia shrugs.

“I’m not a young woman anymore.” She ignores his scoff. “I don’t want to die alone, Will. Rupert is the best I can hope for.” Will shakes his head.

“You’re a beautiful woman, Alicia,” he says, and just for a moment, she glows under the warmth of his approval. “You could have any man you want.” Alicia shrugs, and gets to her feet.

“Just not the one I really wanted,” she replies, and goes back to bed.

 

The next morning, Alicia is sitting at the counter with her hands wrapped around a mug of tea when the carer girl walks through the door. Without Alicia saying a word, Louisa manages something close to a smile. “Hmm,” she says, and looks Alicia up and down, very pointedly. “Maybe you aren’t that bad.”

Alicia shrugs. “I’m sorry I snapped at you yesterday,” she tells the younger woman. “It was wrong of me.” Louisa gives her a much more sincere smile this time.

“Honestly? I was thinking how much you sounded like Will,” she replies, and starts to make breakfast. Alicia helps her, if only to distract herself from that disquieting thought.

Rupert calls around nine, when Alicia’s sitting with Will in the TV room. She just stares at it. Honestly, she thought he would have called sooner. “Aren’t you going to get that?” Will asks, expressionless.

“I’d rather not,” she mutters, but she picks up the phone anyway.

“Babe? Where the hell are you?”

“I’m safe,” she says. “I’m – I’m not sure I want to go through with the wedding.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” She cringes. She’s never been comfortable talking about her feelings. But she looks over at Will, still with that dreadful emotionless look on his face, and somehow it gives her strength.

“Rupert, I need some time,” she begins, and Will’s expression clouds over. Fuck it. “Actually, I don’t,” she says. “I don’t want to get married. It’s over. And next time you find a girl you want to marry, tell your mum not to be such a horrible bitch to her.” She hangs up, and promptly bursts into tears.

“What’s the matter?” Louisa asks, coming into the room, soap suds all over her hands. Alicia wipes at her eyes.

“I’m going to die alone,” she tells her, and then she’s laughing, and Will’s laughing, and somehow it’s okay.

 

She calls Rupert back properly later, well out of Will’s sight, because she’s only a bit of a horrible cow and it’s not really Rupert’s fault. “Where are you?” he asks, sounding furious, and she sighs.

“With Will.” There’s a rush of expletives down the line.

“Will Traynor?” he asks, when he finally runs out of swear words. “I should have bloody known.”

“It’s not his fault,” Alicia says, and immediately wishes she hadn’t. “Jesus, Rupert. You know we’re not right for one another. We shouldn’t get married just for the sake of getting married.” There’s a long silence.

“Maybe that was the case at first,” he says. “But I do love you, Alicia. I want you to be my wife.” She sighs. This shouldn’t hurt, but it still does, because she’s always known it’s possible to love more than one person.

“I know that,” she says patiently, “and I love you too. But not – not properly. Not the way I should love the person I’m going to spend the rest of my life with.” He draws in a deep breath.

“What about the wedding?” he asks, but he can’t disguise the faint note of relief in his voice. And that _should_ hurt her, but funnily enough, it doesn’t. “We’ve organised everything.”

“I can cancel most of it,” she tells him. “I’ll tell everyone I changed my mind. No one will think any less of you.” She knows how much Rupert values what other people think of him. She’s never exactly understood it herself. “In fact,” she adds mischievously, “in due time, I’m sure there’ll be plenty of eligible young ladies who want to comfort you in your time of need.” He laughs, and that’s when she knows everything is going to be all right.

“You’re terrible, Alicia.”

 

The sun is out when she joins Louisa and Will in the garden. Louisa’s perched on a stone wall and Will’s facing her, his back to Alicia. “Is this a private party or can anyone join?” she calls over to them, and Louisa beckons her over.

“So what did he say?” Will asks, and Alicia scowls at him. She hates that he still knows her so well.

“I am officially a single woman again,” she says. “I have a small fortune’s worth of caterers, florists, and God knows what else to call, I have to tell everyone I know that there’s not going to be a wedding – especially my mother, who has been dropping grandchildren hints for the last six months. Oh, and I had to call my boss at work to tell him I wouldn’t be in today, and when he asked why I panicked and said ‘feminine issues’. I think I heard him spit out his coffee.”

“Dreadful,” Will comments blandly. Alicia makes a rude gesture at him.

Louisa is laughing. “What?” Alicia asks her crossly. Louisa manages to stop giggling.

“Sorry,” she says. “But when I met you, I thought you were just some prissy rich girl who’d never said fuck in her life and was probably a really bad shag.” Will starts snickering. Alicia nearly chokes on air, but when she gets herself under control, she glares at the both of them.

“Can you really see Will going out with someone like that?” Alicia asks tartly. Louisa smirks.

“He’d be the first to tell you he used to be an absolute arse,” she replies. Alicia gives her a wry smile.

“Actually, that’s correct,” she says, ignoring Will’s protests. “But he still had very exacting standards when it came to affairs of the bedroom.”

“I see how this is,” Will says. “You’re both against me.”

Alicia has had a brainwave. “The wedding,” she says, and they both turn to look at her.

“What about it?” Will asks. “Changed your mind again?” There’s a forced sort of lightness to his voice.

“No. Shut up, Will. The reception. I’m going to have it anyway.”

 

The anti-wedding, as she’s taken to calling it in her mind, is an absolute success. Most of Rupert’s friends don’t come, and Rupert himself declines, but that’s really rather good considering she’d never really taken to anyone in his set. Most of his circle – and Will’s, once upon a time – had been wankers. And most of her friends come up to her and tell her they’re so pleased she’s not marrying Rupert because they never liked him much anyway. (Her godmother in particular is very vocal regarding this.) So the cake gets cut and the bouquet gets thrown but she doesn’t wear the wedding dress, and the whole time she keeps half an eye on Will and Louisa, a tiny knot amongst the crowd of people. She watches them spin on the dance floor and there’s something like a void beneath her breastbone, a coldness in her chest.

She finds them in the hotel the next morning. Louisa opens the door, looking bleary and mussed and exceptionally hungover, still in her dress from the night before. “Camilla rang the house,” Alicia says without preamble. “You two better get back to Stortfold.” Louisa nods.

“Can you give me a hand to get Will into his chair?” she asks. Alicia almost says no, but she presses her lips together and nods, and follows Louisa to Will’s room.

“I don’t want her helping,” Will says almost immediately when she comes into the room. Alicia scowls at him.

“This isn’t like it was in the beginning, when you wouldn’t let me even help you with a glass of water,” she snaps. “I’m just going to help Louisa get you into the bloody chair. Shelve your pride for a minute, Will.”

He scowls back at her but obeys. In between the two of them, they get him into the chair. Alicia’s rather surprised at how good Louisa is at it.

She comes with them back to the house and walks them to the car. Louisa’s lowering the ramp. Alicia turns to Will and gingerly pats his arm. “I suppose I’ll see you soon, then,” she says awkwardly. Will just nods, that familiar smug bloody look on his face.

“Don’t worry,” he says over his shoulder as he gets into the car. “I don’t expect you to come back.”

Alicia grits her teeth.

 

The next day, she’s back on his doorstep with three suitcases, and she deeply relishes the gobsmacked expression on Will’s face. “Thought I’d come stay for a bit,” she says breezily after Louisa lets her in, the other girl masking a smile behind her hand. “If you don’t mind. It’s not like I can go on the honeymoon. Rupert’s taken his secretary.”

 “Not at all,” Will says after a moment. “You’re always welcome.”

“Thank you,” Alicia replies. “I’ll just put my things in the spare room, then.”

She can feel them both staring at her back as she goes.

It’s surprisingly comfortable, living with Will and by extension Louisa, who is always there during the weekday. There’s the initial awkward conversation with Camilla and Steven, but after she assures them both she’s only there as Will’s friend, they back off. Camilla in particular Alicia knows has never forgiven her for ‘abandoning’ Will, but she’d never say as much to her face.

After a few days it becomes clear that Louisa and Will are planning something, from the whispered conversations and significant looks shared at the annexe. Alicia doesn’t bother them about it. If they want her to know, they’ll tell her. In the meanwhile, she enjoys the first break she’d had since Will’s accident, and that was no kind of break at all. She reads, listens to music, takes long walks up to and around the castle, and learns to care for Will. She only watches at first, but Louisa is one of the most observant people on the planet and asks her around the third day if she wants to learn. Will makes noise about not wanting her to, but Louisa had tartly replied that if Alicia wanted to learn, it was her business, and that had been that.

Around the fifth day, he agrees to let her try to feed him. She’s shocking at it at first, but Louisa is a patient teacher and even Will manages to keep his criticisms at a minimum. By the end Alicia can do it proficiently, and then Louisa teaches her how to adjust Will’s pillows in bed, and she’s off. She can’t get enough of it. He hadn’t let her touch him after the accident, hadn’t allowed her to help him in the slightest. Being able to help him now, it starts to heal that ancient wound in her, that awful sorrow from that time when he’d needed her and pushed her away simultaneously and she’d felt so fucking _useless_ she could have died of the pain of it.

She meets Nathan, who does most of the physical stuff. He looks at her oddly for a bit until he gets used to her, and then he’s fine. He gives Alicia a few pointers, tells her a bit of the medical background behind Will’s condition, shows her how to stand when helping him in and out of bed so she doesn’t hurt her back. Not that she does much of helping him in and out of bed, but it’s still nice to know.

One day she walks in to find Will and Louisa talking in low, intent voices. It’s different to their usual secretive conversations, so Alicia feels comfortable enough asking them what’s going on.

“Clark’s broken up with her boyfriend, and there’s not enough room for her at home on the weekends,” Will summarises bluntly while Louisa hisses at him to shut up. “I offered her the spare room before, but now that you’re here…”

“Louisa should have the spare room,” Alicia says at once. They both look at her.

“What?”

“Lou can have the spare room,” she repeats, “and I’ll take the sofa. I spent most of my degree on a foldout, I’m used to it. I’ll just need a bit of space somewhere to hang my clothes. Easy. No problem.” Will’s looking at her oddly, and she realises it’s the first time she’s ever called Louisa Lou. Will never does.

“That’s… kind of you,” he says. Alicia shrugs.

“It’s no hardship,” she replies. Will and Louisa trade significant looks (it’s starting to get irritating) and then tell Alicia about their plan to go away. “That’s wonderful,” she tells them, and wonders why they look so surprised. “I’m sure you’ll have a marvellous time.”

Which is how her clothes end up hanging in Will’s wardrobe, considering he doesn’t use his much. Will rolls into the room as she’s hanging up her favourite jacket. “I remember that,” he says, apropos of nothing. “You wore it when we were in…”

“I wear it everywhere,” she teases him lightly. And he smiles back at her, just a little, and there’s a kindling warmth in her chest, and maybe it’s divine punishment for her daring to hope, because then Will gets sick.

 

Alicia sits on the hospital chairs by Louisa, and holds her hand because she doesn’t know what else to do. “He only had a cough on Saturday,” the other woman is saying. Alicia squeezes her hand.

“You know he’s vulnerable to infection,” she replies quietly. They’re not new words. She remembers them from the time just after the accident, where she’d read everything she could get her hands on about quadriplegia and paraplegia and everything in between.

“I know,” Louisa says, and her pretty face is anguished. Alicia doesn’t understand the urgency in her, the sense that for Louisa, something grim is looming.

“You can go on other trips,” Alicia tells her, feeling woefully inadequate, and Louisa yanks her hand away.

“You don’t know anything,” she says almost savagely, and stands up to peer through the glass again at the unmoving Will and at Camilla gently holding his hand. “You don’t know anything at all.”

Camilla goes to change her clothes (glaring at Alicia as she goes past), and doesn’t come back, and it’s left to Alicia to wait a solitary vigil outside Will’s room, uncomfortably aware that Will and Louisa are within, inside an insular bubble of affection she has no hope of entering. At least, until Louisa gets an unexpected call from her sister, and she beckons Alicia in to take over Will duty for a time. He’s not exactly awake when she sits in the chair beside him, but he’s not asleep either. “Was wondering when you’d turn up,” he says, his words more than a little slurred behind the oxygen mask.

“Turn up?” she replies lightly. “I’ve been here the whole time.” Will makes a sound that might either be a sigh or a laugh or both.

“Déjà vu much?” he asks. Alicia smiles, but it’s not happy.

“Kind of,” she admits. “Except back then I would have held your hand. And you would have told me to fuck off.” Will manages a sliver of a smile; she can only barely see it around the mask.

“I really was a prick, wasn’t I,” he says, and it’s not a question. Alicia shrugs.

“Yeah. But you were my prick, and I liked you anyway.” He doesn’t say anything, and she thinks maybe he’s fallen asleep, before he speaks again and startles her.

“You can… hold my hand if you want to,” he mutters, looking determinedly in the opposite direction. “You know. If you were bored, or something.”

“So magnanimous,” Alicia teases gently. But she picks up his hand all the same and cradles it in her own. Will sighs as if something is suddenly right with the world and drifts back off to sleep.

His hands haven’t changed at all.

 

“Another trip?” Alicia asks in shock. “Are you made of money, girl?” It’s the wrong thing to say; Louisa’s pretty little face scrunches up and her eyebrows become attack eyebrows and her eyes are like lasers.

“Coming from you, that’s rich,” she sniffs. “Rather like you, as it happens. You’ve never had to worry about money a day in your life. I saw your parents’ house.” Alicia stiffens.

“My father didn’t buy that house until well after I’d left home,” she says, and loathes the way all emotion leeches out of her voice. “And I left home when I was sixteen. I got tired of telling people I tripped, or had fallen down the stairs, or got a black eye playing lacrosse. When I got my first job designing someone’s front room, I was sleeping on a friend’s sofa eating noodles every night. I know what it’s like to have nothing, Louisa.” There is a terrible sort of silence.

“Why have the wedding there?” Louisa asks. Alicia shrugs and looks away.

“He wouldn’t let Mum come otherwise,” she tells a pot plant, blinking just a little harder than usual. “He was furious when he heard I wasn’t marrying Rupert.” Louisa doesn’t say anything for a bit, and Alicia can’t look at her to try and read what she’s thinking.

 “You should come with us,” Louisa says eventually, and it’s the last thing in the world Alicia expected her to say.

“I’m sorry? What?”

“Come with us,” Louisa repeats, with the air of someone patiently dealing with a very slow child. “When we go to Mauritius.” Alicia flushes instantly.

“I couldn’t. It’s your holiday. Yours and Will’s –”

“And Nathan’s,” Louisa interrupts. “So you can take any notions of Will and I going off for a romantic holiday straight out of your head.” Alicia smiles.

“Maybe it’s not my head that those notions need to be taken out of,” she insinuates, and Louisa flushes bright pink. “Or maybe they should stay. You and Will would make a… Well. You’d be good together.”

“Shut up,” Louisa growls, flushing even darker. “We’re not like that.”

“Of course not,” Alicia agrees amiably. “He hangs on your every word and doesn’t smile in the morning until he’s seen you. And you know all his favourite movies and sulk if I tag along on your afternoon walk.”

“I do not sulk!”

“No, you don’t,” she agrees, and slings an arm around Louisa’s shoulders. “We’ve got some research to do.”

“Did you ever tell Will?” Alicia pauses, just for a moment, but it’s enough to throw her out of step with Louisa.

“Tell him what?”

“About… your dad.” Louisa’s voice is soft and hesitant; Alicia shrugs.

“I never saw the point. It was a long time ago. It doesn’t hurt anymore.”

Louisa follows her out the room, but Alicia swears she heard the other girl murmur, “I know you’re lying.”

 

It’s easier than Alicia expected for the four of them to get to Mauritius. Partly due to Louisa’s superlative organisation skills, partly due to Nathan, and partly due to Will being too exhausted to snark. Alicia just carries things and tries in vain, to convince Camilla at the airport that she had paid her share, thank you very much.

“Mum,” Will had said, his eyes shut and his skin as white as paper, “leave her be.” Those words had warmed her all the way to Mauritius.

It’s beautiful here. They spend days by the pool and days by the beach, watching Nathan charm a Kiwi girl and Louisa and Will do their awkward courtship dance around one another. But they seem calmer when they know she’s close, like she’s a buffer. No, like a shock absorber, like she soaks up the excess energy that crackles between them.

It’s calm. It’s friendly. None of the weirdness that haunted the three of them in England seems to have followed across the sea. Or so Alicia thinks, until the tangle between the three of them comes to a head on the penultimate night.

They’re down by the beach, Alicia and Lou sitting on a picnic blanket, Will in his chair, arguing about the right to the final brownie.

“Like _Notting Hill_ ,” Louisa insists. “Whoever has the saddest life gets the last brownie.”

It’s a game, at first. They bring up little grievances, and Alicia thinks she’s won, with her story of snapping the heel on her favourite pair the week before. But she’s reckoned without Louisa.

“I was raped by a group of strangers,” Louisa says, and something in Alicia aches. From the sad but unsurprised look on Will’s face, this isn’t the first time he’s heard of it. Silently she pats Louisa on the shoulder, and the girl sways a little, but she’s not drunk. She’s only had a glass.

“I got hit by a motorcycle and paralysed from the neck down,” Will says emotionlessly. When Alicia says nothing, he tilts his head to look at her. “Your turn, Alicia.” She sighs.

“My boyfriend told me he’d never loved me,” she says, and God, she’s pathetic. She’s with two people who have had real, awful things happen to them, and she’s still hung up over being dumped.

When she chances a look over at Louisa, though, the other girl’s eyes are full of nothing but sympathy, and Lou pushes the brownie in Alicia’s direction. “You poor thing,” she says, and she maybe she _is_ drunk, because she reaches for Alicia’s hand. “That must have been horrible.”

Alicia clutches her hand tightly. “It was,” she admits, and she looks up at the stars, she can’t look at Will or Lou when she says these things, it would hurt too much. “I cried every night for months because it hurt to go to bed without him. And then I slept with his best friend when I was drunk and somehow I was engaged and I didn’t know how to make it all stop. And I. Christ. I missed him so much.”

“Your boyfriend lied,” Will says abruptly, and Alicia sits up at once. Will’s not looking at her; he’s examining a nearby shrub as if it contains the secrets of the universe. “He only said that so you’d leave and be with someone who could give you everything you deserve.”

Alicia looks at Will, and he looks back at her. She remembers sitting by his bedside waiting for him to wake up, the way she’d memorised every inch of his face, just in case she’d lose him. Well. He’s still alive, but she’d lost him anyway, and there are lines on his face from pain and fear and time and she loves him more now than she’d ever thought possible.

“I should go,” Louisa says, and the moment fractures. Louisa stands up, and Alicia doesn’t want her to go. She doesn’t know how to tell Lou that it feels wrong when she’s not here, how to erase that bruised look from Louisa’s pretty face. But she has to do something.

“No, wait,” Alicia says, and struggles upright. She catches Louisa by the hand, swings her in close, and is kissing her clumsily, all tongue and intent and the champagne buzzing in her skin.

It only lasts a moment. When Alicia pulls away, Louisa is staring at her stunned, and when she chances a glance at Will, he’s looking much the same. Except. Except for that look in his eyes, she’d thought it long buried under years and all the shit that’s happened to him, but it’s there now. Alicia was with him for a long time. She knows what he looks like when he _wants_.

“I shouldn’t have,” Alicia says dazedly, and Louisa licks her lips.

“Maybe,” she replies, “but I think you should do it again.”

They make their way back to their room, and the storm is just beginning. The minute the door closes Louisa is in Alicia’s arms, and Alicia presses her back against the door, kissing her thoroughly.

“Christ,” Will says hoarsely, and Alicia turns, grins at him over her shoulder.

“And you claimed I’m not adventurous enough in the bedroom.” Will’s mouth falls open in outrage.

“That was one time! Five years ago!”

“I remember,” Alicia sniffs, and Louisa is giggling.

“You two bicker like an old married couple,” she says, when she can form words without chortling. There’s no pain in the exclamation, as there might have been even weeks ago. They’re past that, now.

“And you and Will bicker like a young married couple,” Alicia replies. “And we…”

“Make out like teenagers,” Will supplies, and oh, the joy of it, filling Alicia up like bubbles in champagne, like the sunlight burning through mist.

“Did that sound like an order to you?” Louisa asks coyly, and Alicia smirks.

“I think you’re right,” Alicia agrees, over Will’s outraged objections. “We should not keep kissing, then, if he’s going to be so heavy-handed and authoritative with us.” Alicia looks at Louisa for a moment, her deep, dark eyes, her hair falling loose over her shoulders in waves. “Fuck it,” she decides, and leans in for another kiss.

And why not? They’re in a foreign country and everything is different and she’s never been with a girl before but Jesus Christ, if this is what Will wants to see, it’s what he’ll damn well get. And it’s what Alicia wants. It’s been a long time since she’s wanted anything this much.

Alicia strips Louisa’s yellow and brocade dress off her, taking her soft little breasts into her hands and running her fingertips over them until the other girl cries out. “Use your mouth,” Will rumbles, his voice dipping lower, and Alicia shivers; she’s missed his sex voice terribly.

“We can do one better than that,” Alicia replies, and guides Louisa to sit down on the edge of her the bed, in just her knickers. Alicia sits behind her, wraps her arms around the other girl’s torso when she feels her start to shiver, and beckons Will closer. “Come have a taste, Will,” she directs, and feels Louisa shudder all the way through her body, a tremor that starts in the body and ends in the soul.

Will moves his chair over. His expression is unreadable, and for a moment Alicia fears she’s pushed things too far. And then he’s beside the bed, as close as he can get, and Alicia presses Louisa forward until Will can take one perky, budded nipple into his mouth. The noise he makes is part growl and part moan and all divine. And Louisa arches up into his touch, and Alicia remembers starkly how the air seems like it’s filled with electricity when these two are in a room together. The jealousy, somehow, has leeched away. All that remains is a sweetness at seeing them together, at being a link in the chain forged by their stalwartness and their love. If she goes, they will be all right without her, in time. But they want her to stay.

And that’s enough.

Louisa breaks away from Will’s mouth with a sudden gasp; while Alicia had been wool-gathering, he’d been at both breasts until the nipples are plump and hard

“Will,” Louisa says, and she’s running her little hands through Will’s hair, he’s damn near purring like a cat. “That was –”

“If you think that’s all we’re going to do to you,” Alicia murmurs in her ear, and traces one slow finger down the curve of Louisa’s arse, until she can brush the younger girl’s knickers aside and slide her finger through softness and slick. Louisa makes a little noise rather like a ‘ _meep_!’ but rocks back onto Alicia’s hand. She can’t touch Lou’s clit from this angle but she can slip a finger into the heat of her, feel Louisa clench around her and the smooth glide of skin against skin.

“Will,” Louisa says, both of her hands holding both of Will’s, using the arms of his chair to brace herself. Alicia doesn’t mind, that she called out for him. Alicia has called out for him before, too.

“Yes, Clark?” he asks, his voice almost musical with amusement.

“Put your mouth on me again,” she urges, leaning forward, and over her shoulder Alicia catches something dark flash in his eyes.

“I want to make you come,” he says, all amusement gone and replaced by deadly intent, and Alicia remembers, both sharply and sweetly, how Will gets filthy during sex.

But it’s new to Louisa. “Oh, God,” she whimpers, Will now biting gently at her breast, and Alicia feels even more slickness flood over her fingers.

“Jesus, Will,” she says, and offers up her fingers to him for inspection. “She’s so wet. Do you want a taste?” Will releases Louisa’s nipple, and a moment later his tongue is deftly swiping the dampness from Alicia’s fingers, excruciatingly thorough.

It’s the first time he’s had his mouth on her in two and a half years. She might just die from this.

When he’s done, Alicia eases Louisa back onto the bed; the other girl’s knees are trembling from kneeling for so long. Alicia cradles her against her body, set back against the pillows, Louisa’s back to her breasts. Her cunt is wet between them, but Lou doesn’t seem to mind, and Alicia puts her fingers to work, strumming over Louisa’s clit and the soft folds of her cunt.

She’s never done this to another person before, but she knows how she likes to be touched. And Louisa clearly isn’t hating it, from the moans falling from her lips or the tension in her body like a bowstring pulled taut. And Will, just as much arousing Louisa as Alicia is; his blue eyes intent, his chair as close to the bed as is humanly possible. Alicia throws out her arm, wraps her hand around his like an anchor. After a moment, she feels his thumb stroke tentatively over her skin, and it’s enough to have her gasping.

“This can’t be real,” Louisa says, almost dizzily, the jump of her hips hesitating for a moment, and Alicia pauses.

“Wait,” she says, and sits upright. “There’s something – we have to talk about something.”

“You have terrible timing,” Louisa says dryly and with no little frustration, and indicates her naked body with a wave of her little hand. Alicia seizes it, presses fond kisses to the knuckles.

“I agree,” Will says. Alicia scowls at them both.

“It’ll only take a moment,” she says, and stops kissing Louisa’s fingers for a moment, even if her libido thinks that is a Very Bad Idea. “Whatever happens,” Alicia says, and tries to work out what she wants to say in her mildly tipsy brain; it’s not as easy as it looks. “We’re – all three of us. We’re all equals. It doesn’t matter that Will and I used to be involved or that you two have that weird secret head tilt code. This is new. This is something different. Okay?”

Louisa nods. Alicia switches her gazes to Will. “It seems rather redundant, given you’ve both seen me naked before, but consent gained,” he says lightly. “Now will you two please get on?”

“Get it on, more like,” Louisa mutters, and Alicia laughs, and skims a hand down Lou’s thigh to roll her clit under her fingers. Louisa tenses, and then relaxes back against her, splayed out for Will to see and pressed against Alicia so tight she can feel every curve of Lou’s body.

“Almost there,” Alicia encourages, and isn’t this the life, Louisa Clark making tiny, broken noises in her throat, her hips rising and falling beneath Alicia’s hand. Alicia looks up, to Will by the bed, his eyes catching the light like blue flames in the gentle light.

“Is this what you wanted to see?” Alicia asks her, and shushes Louisa gently when she opens her eyes and makes an enquiring little noise. “Will. You wanted to see her come?”

“Yes,” he hisses, his jaw set. “And you.” Alicia laughs lightly.

“You’ve seen me come plenty of times before,” she reminds him. Will’s jaw is gritted and his hand tightens a little on hers.

“Doesn’t mean I don’t want to see it again,” he says tightly, and Alicia speeds up her other hand. Lou cries out, arching up for a long, drawn out moment, before she relaxes down onto the bed, her chest heaving. “Good girl,” Will tells Louisa, and Alicia takes her hand away from Will’s to draw Louisa into her arms, touching a soothing hand to the other girl’s tangle of dark hair.

“How’d that feel, honey?” she asks, a question just for Louisa, and Lou sighs deeply.

“So good,” she replies, a languidness to her voice, before that familiar mischievous smile comes over her face. “Your turn,” she says, and pins Alicia down so she’s on her back, and Alicia looks over to see Will’s face as intent on this as he’d been on Louisa before. “Are you going to tell me how she likes it, Will?” Louisa asks, and Will’s face splits into a grin, his dimples showing and those lovely lines around his mouth.

“Of course, Clark,” he says. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.” Alicia relaxes back, and lets her head hit the pillow. “It’s not rocket science,” Will continues. “Just do what you like.” Louisa stiffens.

“I don’t – no one’s ever –”

“You’re shitting me,” Alicia says, at the same time Will chips in with a hearty, “Fucking hell.”

“No one ever?” Alicia continues. “That’s a fucking travesty. We’ll be amending that.”

“Put it on the agenda,” Will says soberly, and they’re all laughing again.

“Hold her legs apart, Clark,” Will directs, and suddenly the laughter turns to arousal, as sharp as being pierced with a blade. _He hasn’t forgotten._ Alicia remembers, vividly, him licking her out for hours, until she’d squirmed and begged for mercy and he’d look up at her with his face soaked and a downright wicked grin, “Come on, ‘Licia, you can take one more for me, can’t you baby?”

And she always had. One more, for Will, even when she was strung to the limits of her control, coming and crying from overstimulation and him wrapping his arms around her afterwards and telling her she’d done well. So she’s got a praise kink. Jesus. If Will teaches Lou how to do _that_ thing he used to do with his tongue, she’ll be lost. She can’t handle _two_ of them.

But when Louisa tentatively licks her clit, all thoughts of the past fly straight out of Alicia’s head. It’s been so long. Rupert never went down on her, and Alicia honestly hadn’t really wanted him to.

It doesn’t take much. She’s always been disgustingly easy to get off when someone’s licking her, and she doesn’t care to draw it out. The sweet of it starts in her clit and her cunt and starfishes out like fire into every corner of her body; her hips lift clear off the bed, she holds Will’s hand far too tight and bites her lip to keep from screaming.

When she’s back to herself, she nudges Lou away from her. “Oversensitive,” she murmurs, and draws the other girl up to curl like kittens together on the bed for a minute, sated. Then they have the presence of mind to get Will out of (most) of his clothes and manoeuvre him into the middle of the bed, propped up on pillows, with Alicia on one side and Lou on the other. Alicia doesn’t mind looking out at the storm while they whisper to one another, at one point catching them lazily kissing out of the corner of her eye.

She feels amazing, languid and eased, like a coil wound too tight inside of her has finally been released. But there’s something niggling at the corner of her mind. This feels right, but it also feels wrong too.

She realises what it is the moment she shifts to curl more firmly into Will’s side (without putting any undue pressure on his skin), and finds them both looking at her, identical expressions of inquiry on their faces.

“You two look concerned,” Alicia teases.

“When you’re quiet, it usually means you’re plotting something,” Will says. Alicia is woman enough to admit that he’s not wrong. Lou slips away from the bed to fetch Will some water, and Alicia watches her bend the straw tenderly to Will’s lips, to the silent but profound communication that passes between them.

“Maybe I am,” she says, and shakes her head to Louisa’s offer of a glass of water of her own. “What of it?”

“Do get on with whatever intrigue you’ve dreamed up in that head of yours,” Will drawls, and that tone always used to piss her off; it still does, come to think of it. So Alicia throws all caution to the wind, turns fully on her side to face him, and very deliberately puts her hand on Will’s leg, just above his knee.

He understands. He’s not stupid, after all; she never could have loved him if he was. Will can’t physically stiffen in discomfort, but she feels the tension run through his body all the same. “No,” he says, his voice like iron, and she removes it immediately.

“Okay,” she says soothingly, and waits for him to calm before she continues. Louisa is frozen over by the table. “But why? It feels wrong, that we’ve both come but you haven’t.” He turns his head to look at her, and his eyes are almost black with a thousand emotions she couldn’t possibly hope to name.

“Why?” he mimics bitterly, and she wonders if he even heard the rest of the sentence. “Where do I start?”

“Don’t start,” she tells him. “Just be. Live boldly, Will. Isn’t that what you’re always telling Lou?” He bites his lip. It’s enchanting. She’d loved bold, intense, athletic Will, past Will, but as he is now, vulnerable at times, he’s far easier to cherish. “Don’t worry,” she says lightly. “I know what you like.” And finally, he nods.

“It might not work,” he tells her, his cheeks scarlet. “Or it might take longer than it used to. I don’t know. I haven’t tried –”

“Will,” Alicia says, and squeezes his hand. “You can say no.” And she waits. She can see the turmoil in his face.

“I’m not the same man I was,” he says at last. Alicia grins, and it feels like her whole body is filled up with joy. Out of the corner of her eye she sees Louisa stop in the doorway, her face unsure.

“And I’m not the same woman,” Alicia replies. “And now we have this gorgeous girl with us who neither of us ever dreamed we might have. Come up here, Lou.” She waits until Louisa settles onto the bed, bookending Will on the other side once more.

With infinite care, she and Lou wriggle him out of his T-shirt. Alicia gasps, and Will turns scarlet. “I know,” he mutters, and his hand twitches like all that’s left of the instinct to cross his arms over his chest. “I’m not… what you remember.” Alicia never wants to see that helpless shame written over his face again.

“You’re exactly what I remember,” she tells him, but his face only darkens. Bloody Will, always the same when he gets an idea in his head. Alicia stills, and then without a thought throws her arms around him. “I missed you so much,” she says into his chest, his dear beloved chest, changed but still the same. “So much. Love you, Will. Always have. Always will.”

There’s a soft noise from above her head, and when she looks up, Will’s eyes are brimming. “You mean it?” he chokes out. “Even after what I said? What I did? Even after –”

“Always have,” she repeats, and holds his gaze. “Always will.”

“Saps,” Louisa mutters, just loud enough to be heard, and it breaks the tension. Will laughs a bit, and Alicia dabs at her eyes, and then Lou has her hand on the back of Alicia’s head, guiding her down to kiss Will. And the taste of his mouth, the touch of his lips, it’s the same, it’s perfect, she’s missed him like oxygen, but now she can breathe.

Alicia pulls away to let Louisa have a turn, and takes Will’s hand in her own. “Clench,” she instructs, and he does so; not much, but enough. “You want me to stop, you just clench your fist, and I’ll stop. Okay? Lou, let up for a minute.”

“Okay,” Will replies rather breathlessly, his lips slick and his cheeks pink.

“Good,” Alicia reports, and as they go back to kissing she skates her free hand down Will’s chest, still a little fuzzy in the middle, and over the plane of his stomach. Will makes a muffled noise as she walks her fingers through where the trail of hair leading downwards starts to thicken, skirting the suprapubic catheter that emerges from his skin. She’s absurdly grateful for it, over an IDC. It makes things so much easier.

Louisa’s not kissing him, at the moment when Alicia fits her hand around his cock, tucking her hand down the waistband of his underwear, and it makes the choked expletive he almost _snarls_ all the more enjoyable. His hand stays lax in her own, and his mouth is free, but he’s not telling her to stop.

She hadn’t expected much, so she strokes him gently, curiously. He’d liked it harder, before, and surely that doesn’t change when you become paralysed from the neck down, so she tightens her grip a little, fists his cock the way he used to love. And maybe she drifts off a bit into the past but she looks down and suddenly he’s hardening under her hand and his head is thrown back, his jaw tensed, teeth gritted.

“Can you feel that?” Alicia asks, curious and nosey as ever.

“Do I look like I can bloody feel it?” Will asks through gritted teeth. “Stupid question, Alicia.”

“Your manners are shocking,” Louisa tells him. “When she’s doing such a good job.”

“My apologies,” Will snarks. “Now if you’d both be so kind to help me out of my pants.”

And so they do. And then they’re all naked, all three of them as bare as the day they were born, long before the universe broke them all in different ways so they could only fit back together with each other.

It takes a while, much longer than it used to, but Alicia doesn’t mind. She’s been starved for Will for years; lingering over his body is no task for her. And Louisa is one of those people who likes to kiss; so is Will, come to think of it. Alicia strokes Will lazily while she watches them kiss, all dark hair and gilded skin in the dim light. “We seem to be doing rather well as this,” she observes.

“The literature was very helpful,” Louisa pipes up. Will nearly chokes.

“You researched _this_?”

“Knowledge is power, Will,” Louisa says smugly. Alicia chortles.

“Good, turn his lines back on him. And for the record, I also researched this.” Will holds out for a moment, before giving in.

“So did I,” he admits. Alicia looks up and meets Louisa’s eyes, fairly glinting with amusement.

“Great minds think alike,” Alicia starts, and Will looks at her.

“But fools seldom differ,” he replies, completing the quotation. She smiles at him for a moment.

“What do you want?” she asks, looking up at him through the fall of her hair over her eyes. “You can have anything you want, Will. Anything at all.”

“I draw the line at anal,” Lou says dryly from where she’s been sucking a bruise into the side of Will’s throat. Alicia snorts, and also thinks, clever girl. She works out what he likes much quicker than Alicia ever did.

Will sucks in a deep breath after his hasty laugh from Louisa’s comment, and his voice is raw when he replies, “Alicia, please.”

“Please?” she asks, and he growls.

“You know what I want,” he snaps. “What, you want me to beg?”

“No,” Alicia says, and at the same time Louisa chips in, “That might be nice.” As one Will and Alicia look at her, and she pinks almost immediately. “Not necessarily you! Could be me! Or, you know, Alicia could beg. I don’t mind.”

There is a beat of silence. Always the quiet ones, Alicia thinks in amusement. “We will… explore that at a later date,” she comments, and something foreign flashes across Will’s face, almost too fast to be seen. Alicia shrugs, there’s no point pursuing it now, and moves down the bed lower; she has to let go of Will’s hand, but she’s comfortable now that he would tell her to stop if he needed.

She looks up at him, gives him the old bedroom eyes just for a moment, and he smirks. “Tease,” he tells her, just like the old days, and she smiles.

“Your tease,” she replies, like she always used to, and licks a stripe up his cock from his balls to the tip.

“God, you really are a tease,” Louisa comments, and Alicia glares at her. To silence them both she swallows him down to the hilt, and suddenly they’re both silent; Will with pleasure, and Lou’s eyes are wide with respect. “You’ve got to teach me how to do that,” she says. Alicia just waves a hand at her. She’s a little occupied at the moment.

Will has changed, and he hasn’t. He still talks when she’s got her mouth on his cock, he still tastes and feels the same, heavy on her tongue, bumping against the back of her throat. Once, though, he would have had his hands in her hair, and Alicia has a sudden brainwave. She moves his hand herself and sinks it into her hair; Will immediately makes a happy sound in his throat.

And yes, it does take a while, but it’s time well spent. Louisa is kissing Will when he comes, and Alicia has the whole of him in her mouth, and he can’t buck underneath her like he used to but the salt and bitter of him hasn’t changed. She guides him through the aftershocks, and then, when his breathing is back to normal (and Lou’s stopped looking concerned about his elevated pulse), Alicia drags the sheet up over them, because they’re English, after all, and some standards have to be maintained.

“I can’t believe…” Will begins, and trails off.

“In UFOs? Snakes with hands? That koalas aren’t really bears?”

“No, shut up, Alicia.”

“Are they not really bears?” Louisa asks.

“Not helping, Clark. I can’t believe that tonight is. That it’s real.” Alicia snorts. “God, that’s a very unfeminine noise.”

“Bugger off,” Alicia retorts amiably. “Either someone’s spiked my mojito with the extra special vodka, or this is real. My money’s on the former.” She gets out of the bed and stretches; through the open doors, the storm is still raging. She’s barely noticed it, or the occasional flickering light, at all. “I’m all sticky. Time for a shower, and then I’ll crash on the sofa.”

“No,” Will says, and Louisa follows with, “Stay.” And how could she resist, blue eyes and brown eyes plaintive and geared to exactly manipulate her into doing what they want.

It’s effective.

“This bed isn’t big enough for three,” Alicia mutters, but she slips in beside them again all the same, Will in the middle, Alicia and Louisa on either side, the moons trapped in his orbit. Or perhaps it is Will and Alicia who are circling around Louisa. She doesn’t know anymore.

Lightning streaks the sky and lights the room up even brighter for a moment. And then the lights go out for the last time, and she’s alone in the dark, with the two best people in the world.

 

“Alicia,” someone hisses, and Alicia’s abruptly reminded of that very first night in the annexe, when Will had called out to her. But this isn’t Will, the voice is too soft and too high. It’s Lou.

“What is it?” Alicia asks, rubbing at her eyes. She’s on the sofa in Will’s room. Louisa had been in the bed beside Will, when Alicia had left it around two am. There really wasn’t enough space, and Louisa and Will had been asleep together, enough to tug gently at Alicia’s heartstrings. She hadn’t wanted to wake them.

“He wants to die,” Louisa tells her, and Alicia’s heart stops in her chest.

“What?” she asks. Louisa’s face crumples.

“Will,” she says. “He wants to go to that place in Switzerland. Dignitas. The one that footballer went to.”

“No,” Alicia replies calmly. “He can’t. Will wouldn’t do that.” But abruptly, she remembers how his face had shuttered the night before, just for a moment, when she’d mentioned the future. Louisa makes a frustrated noise in her throat.

“That’s been the point of these trips,” she says sharply. “To make him change his mind. Only –” Louisa’s voice catches. “Only I think he might not change his mind,” she continues. “Didn’t last night feel like a goodbye to you?”

Alicia lies in the dark for a long time after Louisa goes back to bed, thinking.

The next day dawns bright and sunny, all trace of the storm gone. Alicia finds Will and Louisa downstairs at breakfast. Louisa is booked in for scuba diving, and she’s nervous. “It’s not that bad,” Alicia tries to tell her. “It’s fun.”

“I’ve got a hickey,” Will is scowling. “I don’t remember which one of you did it, but just know I’m very displeased.”

“Liar,” Louisa says. “When Nathan asked you about it this morning you couldn’t stop smirking.”

“Mainly because he has one too from that Kiwi girl,” Will sniffs. Alicia scoffs.

“He has three from that Kiwi girl. Your eyesight is going.”

 

Will and Louisa disappear after dinner. Alicia reads by the pool in the warmth that lingers, but when she looks up and notices the glow she’s been reading by now comes from electric lights, she starts to worry. She gathers up three cocktails, triangles them against one another in her hands, and, pretext firmly established, goes to hunt Will and Lou down.

Alicia finds them on the beach, and she knows immediately something is wrong. Louisa is crying and Will is close to it. “What is it?” she asks, dreading the answer, setting the drinks down on a rock.

“Tell her!” Louisa shouts, and it’s just wrong to hear her pretty voice so strained with fury and fear. “Tell her what you’re going to do. Go on!”

Alicia can’t decide who she feels sorrier for. Lou, red and blotchy and furious, or Will, suddenly very pale under his tan. “Alicia,” he begins. “I’m. I need to… when we get back –”

“I never had you pegged for the kind of man who gave up, Will,” Alicia informs him evenly, and Will’s jaw tightens.

“Does everyone bloody know, then?” he snaps. “How long?”

“Since last night,” Alicia replies. “One hell of a burden you’ve put on that girl, there.” Louisa is just watching, her chest heaving, tears still tracking down her face. “Months of perking you up and thinking up things you could do and dumping her fucking _boyfriend_ , and you’re going to go to fucking Switzerland anyway? You’re really going to let her live with the knowledge that she failed you for the rest of her life?”

They both flinch. Alicia’s harshness is abrading her on the inside, but if she knows one thing about Will, it’s that cruelty helps him see sense more than kindness. “She didn’t fail,” he says hotly. “She gave me the best six months of my life.”

“Then why?” Louisa asks, and she’s fallen to her knees beside Will; his face is visibly pained looking at her. “Don’t stop at six months. A year, two – we could have that. The three of us.”

“No,” he says, and something in Alicia snaps. She steps forward.

“Stop it,” she says, and takes his face in her hands. “Stop. Don’t you dare, Will. You don’t get to check out on me again.”

“’Licia,” he says, and she nearly cries at the sound of her nickname in his voice. “And Clark. You’ll be fine without me. You’ll have each other. I love you both, and you love each other. You don’t need me.”

“Fuck that,” Alicia tells him. “And fuck you for giving up. You’ve given up on me before. Well, I’m not bloody having it this time, and I won’t let you do that to Louisa. It’s your choice, Will. Your choice to hurt the people you love or stick it out a bit longer.” She sees the exact moment her words penetrate his armour, and she wants to cry or sing or fucking jump for joy. But she doesn’t.

“God,” he says, and his head drops as much as it can, his eyes are full of tears. “Please don’t ask me to stay.”

But she’s selfish, she’s always been selfish, and she won’t let him go. “Stay,” she tells him, and she can hear Louisa’s ragged breath beside her, the sand digging into her knees and the wind cool on her skin. Louisa’s not selfish. Louisa is brightness, and Alicia is shadow, and Will the twilight where they meet.

Will looks down at them both and Alicia wonders what he sees, two girls on the knees before him, so different but united, because of him. “Jesus,” he says, and Alicia’s heart leaps up into her throat. “Fine. All right. I’ll stay.”

She can hear Louisa crying, and maybe Alicia is too, she doesn’t know, and she pulls herself up to sweep down on him and kiss his beloved, familiar face. “Oh, I do love you, Will,” she says, and then Louisa’s beside her, and they’re both kissing him all over his cheeks, his eyelids, his forehead. “I love you both so very much.”

And they love her. And it’s not right, but it’s not wrong either, and maybe that’s enough.

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t often analyse why I want to write a fic. I usually just write it, try and get rid of most of the typos, and post. But this one I had to think about a bit. Why did the idea of Alicia, Will, and Louisa together stick with me? The other two make sense. I love Louisa and Will. But Alicia…
> 
> On first viewing and read through of Me Before You, she’s not exactly a sympathetic character. She’s Will’s ex-girlfriend now marrying his ex-best friend. There’s not many nice things you could say about her. But then I remembered that Will comments that she did the interior decorating for the annexe.
> 
> That sort of thing doesn’t happen overnight. Camilla says that they redid the stables into the annexe especially for Will. So that means that Alicia had some or possibly a lot of input into the design of the annexe. That would have taken a long time, to work out Will’s needs, to design it to give him maximum access. Not to mention that he would have been in hospital for some time following the accident before the need for the annexe was determined. (Being in the health system, I can tell you that this sort of thing does not happen overnight.) That’s a while where presumably Will was being his arrogant arse self (for further information, see first hundred pages of Me Before You). So Alicia stuck around and designed the annexe presumably while being battered with premium Will Traynor sarcasm and derision. That’s big. That’s a labour of love on par with Louisa trying to change Will’s mind. That’s designing a place for Will that’s modern, urban, and maybe a little like what he would have had in London. That’s making a space for Will to be Will in a world that’s on a whole not designed for the disabled.
> 
> Not to mention the spare room. Alicia could have made that into a library, or a sitting room, or any other number of things. Instead she made it a bedroom. Because she thought that there was someone who intended to stay with Will long term. It only makes sense that she thought it might be her. Add to that: “I did try. I really tried. For months. And he just pushed me away… He actually didn’t want me here. He made that very clear.”
> 
> Maybe I’m overthinking it. Tell me what you think?


End file.
